“I know — the heat seekers, though.”
“You have to finish this, and finished it fast,” Greene said quietly, his voice taking on an odd note. “Stoney, he knows his aircraft — we’re just amateurs. If you try to fight him one-on-one, we’re going to lose. So, at least get us down to a survivable altitude for ejection.”
“No punching out, not unless we’re hit bad,” Tombstone said. He did, however, descend 2,000 feet, putting them at the very edge of the ejection envelope. “And if we’re going down, we’re taking him with us. You think he knows how to play chicken?”
Now content that he knew who the other pilot was, Korsov toyed with him. Yes, the man appeared to be a competent aviator, but he was not a veteran MiG pilot. He had a heavy hand on the controls and missed opportunities for maneuver that any one of his former students would have recognized.
Korsov turned again, trying to get the advantage of the sun again, but the other aircraft turned to intercept him. He turned as well, then began firing, positioning the nose gun carefully and directing its fire for maximum effect.
The first few rounds hit. The MiG pulled up nose high and the inexperienced pilot evidently overcorrected, sending her tail over nose, tumbling, somersaulting across the sky. Korsov watched the MiG depart controlled flight, faintly disappointed. ACM should end with fire and smoke, not with a quiet splash in the ocean three miles below.
Well, a kill was a kill. Korsov rolled his neck, working the tension out that always settled in during the combat. He turned back to the south. Critically low on fuel, he contacted the AGI and ordered the master to make best speed toward him. He proceeded at max conserve speed to the south. In another five minutes, he would commence his descent — his final descent. He would eject from the aircraft at 3,000 feet.
The aircraft shook violently, the engines screaming like banshees as the aircraft tumbled though the sky. Tombstone fought the disorientation as he tried to stabilize her motion into a flat spin. Anything was better than this wild uncontrolled motion — there was no way even to begin to recover from this, and there wasn’t even a very good chance of ejecting. More than likely, they’d smash into the aircraft within microseconds of punching out.
Recovering from a flat spin in a Tomcat was almost impossible. But maybe, just maybe, if he stomped hard enough on the control surface and kicked in afterburners, he could manhandle the lighter MiG. The engines might be able to overpower, at least temporarily, through brute force, the aircraft’s gyrating motion. Then maybe he could convert the flat spin into something he
Sure enough, the MiG slowly went nose down, and after four more gyrations, quit swapping nose with ass. Now she was headed straight down, her speed increasing with every moment, every support structure howling in protest. Tombstone pulled back on her, watching all the controls redline, fighting against the blackness. Behind him, he heard Greene shouting, coaching him, insulting him, anything to keep him conscious.
Finally, when the strain on his arms was almost unbearable, the death dive flattened out slightly. The MiG’s nose twitched upward ever so slightly. Tombstone cut back slightly on the power and increased the angle on the control surfaces. Ever so gradually, the MiG began to respond.
But would it be enough? The altimeter was already unwinding past 10,000 feet and he still had not regained control.
A Tomcat could withstand far more stress in her structural members than the men in her, and Tombstone forced himself not to pull up too hard on her. But, dammit, she had to recover fast, or there’d be no chance at all.
Her wings were thrumming in the air, vibrating curiously as the air poured over them. She started to shake, more violently than she ever had before, and for a moment he was afraid they were not going to make it.
But, then, ever so slightly, her nose came up. Not much, but enough to send a surge of hope coursing through him. He eased back on the throttle.
Her airspeed indicator quivered and started dropping. He pulled back harder, willing with every ounce of his being into her sinews of hydraulic lines, making himself one with her. He felt her pain, the agony at her wing roots, the excruciating pain in her control surfaces. Yet valiantly she fought on, trying her best to respond to the insane demands he placed on her. And, gradually, she did it.
They could have been in the dive for hours. It seemed to him he had spent a lifetime inside the MiG’s cockpit, straining to pull her up, fighting the forces of drag and gravity. How she had managed to hold together he would never know, but somehow she had.
He heard Greene gasp in relief in the back seat. Tombstone did not yet trust himself to speak.
Every second of level flight sent adrenaline coursing through him. He tried a few, cautious maneuvers, testing her aerodynamics — yes, she was fine, no sluggishness or unexpected jolts indicating damage control surfaces. Finally, when he was satisfied that she was not seriously damaged, he said, “So we’re still here.”
“Yeah,” Greene managed.
There were a few seconds of silence, and Tombstone said, “Why didn’t you eject? After all you’ve talked about it — well — I thought—”
Silence. “Because I thought you would pull us out,” Greene said finally. “No, that’s not fair. I knew you would. And I—
Tombstone scanned the area outside of his canopy, looking for what had caught Greene’s attention. His eyes were burning fuzzy from the force of pulling down during the dive. “Two o’clock low — it’s him!”
Now Tombstone had a visual on the other MiG. Yes, it was the MiG they’d been chasing, the one he simulated this death fall in order to trick into complacency. Because his plan had worked exactly as he hoped. Everyone knew — knew with absolute certainty — that a MiG could not recover from a flat spin.
Tombstone had known better. He had trusted his instincts with her, had put his life in her hands, and she had come through for him. Sometimes what you know wasn’t as important as what you believed.
“The tail number — did you see the tail number!” Greene shouted. “It’s the same MiG, Tombstone — the MiG in Chechnya!”
And so it was. Tombstone recognized the tail number, along with the odd streak of red along the vertical stabilizer. “How the hell — never mind! Any second now he’s going to realize that—”
Too late. The MiG jinked violently out of the way as the pilot evidently looked up and saw his adversary still airborne.
Tombstone dove after him, holding his fire for a few seconds then slammed his finger down on the fire button.
It was like seeing a ghost. Korsov shuddered as he looked up and saw the MiG cruising above him. It could not be — no MiG could recover from that violent a spin.
An ancient dread crept into Korsov’s soul, one born in the flat targas of Russian. This is no aircraft, not a MiG with an American pilot. It was a demon, a lost soul cruising these winds — and it was searching for him.
With a cry, Korsov cut away from it, thinking only of running. Panic threatened to overwhelm him and he caught himself, realizing that the surest way to die was to panic.
Korsov turned, his hand on the ejection handle, checked his altitude, and said a silent prayer to his ancestors that he’d survive the ejection at this altitude. He yanked down on the ejection bar.
“Oh, dear God,” Tombstone breathed. His mouth dropped open as he stared in shock at what was
